Charles Gleyre, 1806-1874

Book Description

Known chiefly for his role as a teacher of the leading Impressionists, Charles Gleyre (1806-1874) won great acclaim for his own paintings at home in Switzerland and abroad, eventually gaining recognition as the most eminent Swiss painter between Fuseli and Hodler. Gleyre can now be seen as a highly original artist working in a late romantic-classical vein. In these two volumes, William Hauptman presents the first detailed account of the artist's life and work since Clément's study in 1878, and the first catalogue raisonné of his paintings, drawings, and water colors. One of his aims is to explore the importance of Gleyre's art and influence in nineteenth-century France and Switzerland.

Drawing on recently discovered documents, letters, and sketchbooks, Hauptman provides new information on Gleyre's extensive voyage to the Middle East, his unorthodox attitudes toward his own paintings and their exhibition, the originality of his major works for French and Swiss patrons, and his unconventional teaching career that spanned twenty-five years. The author pays particular attention to never- before-published material, including journals and diaries of friends and colleagues with whom Gleyre worked and traveled, and sketches Gleyre made for his American patron, John Lowell, Jr. Together these volumes examine and illustrate more than fifteen hundred works, ranging chronologically from Gleyre's youthful portraits and figure studies of 1825 to his last painting, said to have been retouched on the day of his death. The result is a rare, significant overview of a little-known artist whose work merits greater attention.

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CHARLES GLEYRE 1806-1874
Grey Art Gallery
Manufacturer: Grey Art Gallery
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000VBMHAE

Charles Gleyre, 1806-1874; Exhibit Catalog for Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, NYU, February 6-March 22, 1980, and University of Maryland Art Gallery, April 3-May 2, 1980

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Charles Gleyre, 1806-1874; Exhibit Catalog for Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, NYU, February 6-March 22, 1980, and University of Maryland Art Gallery, April 3-May 2, 1980

Manufacturer: Grey Art Gallery and Study Center
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000DZF1QK

Product Description

Exhibit catalog from 1980 exhibit at New York University and University of Maryland, with interpretive essays by Hauptman and Newhouse. Paintings by 19th century Swiss artist Charles Gleyre, who was active mostly in Paris. He taught Whistler, Bazille, Monet, Renoir and Sisley.

Book Description

A new novel of love and war set in 17th-century England-from the acclaimed author of The Code of Love.

Praised for her "lavish use of history...and vividly detailed settings,"* Cheryl Sawyer sweeps readers back to 17th-century England at the time of the Civil War, where a royal duchess and a warrior prince fight to save a riven kingdom.

Mary Villiers, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, is a ravishing beauty raised as the adopted daughter of Charles I of England. In 1642 she is shocked to find herself opposed to her king when he decides to declare war on Parliament and therefore on his own people. Mary embarks on a dangerous quest to help save the throne of England for its rightful monarch, but first she'll tangle with the king's charismatic nephew, Prince Rupert of the Rhine.

Customer Reviews:

Simpering and simmering during the English Civil War.......2007-07-24

Author Cheryl Sawyer attempts to bring to life the much rumored (but unconfirmed) romance between Mary Villiers, the Duchess of Richmond and Prince Rupert of the Rhine, nephew to (the eventually deposed & decapitated) King Charles I of England during the early years of the English Civil War.

Mary Villiers is daughter to the infamous George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (infamous for being lover to King James I and for his infectious charisma & dandified living). She was a very young girl when jealousy and spite lead to the murder of her father & Mary has tried to live a spot-free chaste courtier's life in the court of her informal "adopted" family - that of King Charles I, his wife Queen Henrietta-Maria and their sons. King Charles I is famous for his ineptitude which eventually lead to the overthrow of the English monarchy, and his wife, Queen Henrietta-Maria for her excessiveness, frivolousness and Catholic fervor. We meet Mary when she is 20 and in a passionless but respectful and friendly marriage to the Duke of Richmond. Mary pays court to the King and Queen nearly without question and without asking for favors - loyalty above all.

In walks the darkly handsome, roguish P.O.W. Prince Rupert of the Rhine, followed by his reputation as a ladies man. Mary and Rupert find themselves drawn to one and other and spend a year yearning and resisting their passionate urges. This sounds like a great set up for a good romance set against political turmoil... but the story didn't deliver. The passion is under developed (too many longing gazes and hidden thoughts) and the chance encounters are hokey (like meeting in a dark tunnel beneath the streets of Oxford that no one had traveled for 200 years). The military strategy sessions and battle descriptions did not add to the love story, and the love story did not add to the political history of the time.

Mary is hard to really truly like - her unwaivering loyalty and friendship to the selfish and fickle Henrietta-Maria is frustrating, and, as written, she seems too fragile, unaware and unsure of herself to hold the interest of the worldly, gallant Prince Rupert. Rupert, on the other hand, is a quirky man who holds to a chivalric code, speaks of himself in the third person, keeps odd pets and is a savage on the battle field (all documented to be true).

I wanted to like this book - but I found it to be just "OK" and a bit too slow for my liking. Those interested in reading about King Charles I and Queen Henrietta-Maria may find their presentation here of interest, though it is secondary to the main story. Sawyer keeps their characters consistent with opinions of the time. They are devoted to each other despite their religious differences. The Queen is a bit domineering, extremely fickle, and "meddlesome" in governmental and military affairs. Perhaps it would not have been such a significant flaw at the time if she had good political instinct, but she did not. Nor did her husband - Sawyer shows him to us as the indecisive and inept ruler he was.

To clarify, I did not expect a traditional sappy "historical romance" & was thus disappointed. I enjoy well written historical novels with romantic subplots. I enjoy the suspense of courtship - the Winter Prince just didn't hit the mark. If love expressed solely by whispered phrases once every 6 months and yearning gazes is your game, The Winter Prince is the book for you.

Myself My Enemy (Queens of England Series, Book 1)

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Nice Perspective on Henrietta Maria
Disappointing
THE ROAD THAT LED TO REGICIDE...

Myself My Enemy (Queens of England Series, Book 1)
Jean Plaidy
Manufacturer: Putnam Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0399128778

Customer Reviews:

Nice Perspective on Henrietta Maria.......2006-12-01

I got on an English Civil War kick a little while ago, and when I started to look around for some novels to read, one of the first I came across was Myself My Enemy, Jean Plaidy's 1983 novel about Henrietta Maria, wife to Charles I.

Myself My Enemy is written in the first person, and traces Henrietta Maria's growth from a headstrong young girl to a more reflective older woman, one with many regrets.

This isn't the best novel about the English Civil War I've ever read. Plaidy's prose isn't particularly memorable, and she always tends to tell more than to show. Nonetheless, Plaidy has a gift for getting inside her characters' heads and making the reader care for them, and I thought she did that well with Henrietta. Fiercely loyal to her husband, deeply committed to her Catholic faith, suffering myriad tragedies, and just as often doing the wrong thing as the right one, Henrietta is an interesting heroine, and Plaidy succeeds in making her an appealing one despite her manifest flaws, of which Henrietta is all too aware despite her best efforts to rationalize her actions to herself. Her wavering between self-knowledge and self-justification is depicted particularly well in the scene where Henrietta mourns her son Henry, whom she had alienated before his untimely death by attempting to convert to Catholicism.

Plaidy depicts Charles I sympathetically, without idealizing him, and the relationship between him and Henrietta is moving. Charles II, blithely ignoring his mother's advice, and not without good reason, is also well drawn.

Judging from the reading I've done since about Henrietta Maria, Plaidy seems to have researched Henrietta's life thoroughly and stuck to historical fact, a refreshing contrast to some more recent novels I've read about other historical figures.

All in all, an interesting introduction to a beleaguered queen, and one that got me scouring the library to learn more about Henrietta.

Disappointing.......2006-07-11

I've really enjoyed Jean Plaidy's books over the years, but hadn't read one in quite a while. Since they've begun to be re-published I decided to see what the library had to offer. I picked this up because I knew very little about the English Civil War and its principal players.

Jean Plaidy usually excels at drawing the reader into a specific historical period through excellent research and detailed description, but I found this book lacking. It felt like a first draft. Written in the first person, Henrietta Marie's voice is repetitious. All of the historical events presented feel shallow due to a lack of detail. King Charles' presence is barely felt as are her feelings toward him. The relationship--supposedly a great love match--never feels fully fleshed out. There's a lack of physical description that makes it hard to feel part of the scene. None of the other characters register as real people either.

Overall, it was a rather boring read. I did finish the book, because I was actually interested in the subject. This is the only fictional account of Henrietta Marie I've been able to find. I give it two stars for that alone.

Read this if you're curious, but I'd recommend any other of Jean Plaidy's books especially The Queen's Confession about Marie Antoinette (written under her Victoria Holt nom de plume) or The Lady in the Tower about Anne Boleyn.

THE ROAD THAT LED TO REGICIDE..........2002-08-27

This is the first volume in the Queens of England series of books by Jean Plaidy, who is also known to her legion of fans as Victoria Holt. It is a well written work of historical fiction that tells the story of the daughter of King Henry IV of France, Henrietta Maria, who went on to marry King Charles I of England.

Henrietta Maria, a Catholic, found herself married to Charles, a Protestant, living in a Protestant country, among a Protestant people. The English, at the time, viewed Catholics with deep suspicion, as the excesses of the Catholic Queen Mary, "Bloody Mary", the daughter of Henry VIII, were still not forgotten. A fervent Catholic, however, Henrietta would not put aside her religion, nor was she particularly discreet about her devotion to Catholicism, and, as such, was never fully accepted by the English people.

Henrietta Maria was an impetuous and pretty, young woman, fond of musical revels, fashionable clothes, and gossip. Her husband, Charles, a family man of principle and integrity, was devoted to her, and together they would go on to have a number of children. Their marriage of state, made for the purpose of maintaining a Franco-English alliance, turned out to be a true love match.

Henrietta Maria was also, however, a puppet of Rome, charged with leading Protestant England back to Catholicism. This was to cloud her judgment, at times, and cause much trouble down the road, and, ultimately, serve to pave the way for the rise of Cromwell and his Puritans. They would make her devotion to her religion and her influence over her husband a focal point for turbulence and civil war. Her loyalty and love for her husband was legendary, but not even she could keep him from the road that led to regicide.

Book Description

The passions and intrigues of Napoleon Bonaparte's court are brought vividly to life through an unusual point of view: that of a merchant's young daughter from Marseilles who became Napoleon's fiancée and rose to become queen of Sweden. A massive international bestseller, the film version starred Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons.

Customer Reviews:

Haunting..........2007-09-15

"Desiree" is the (mostly) true story of Desiree Clary, silk-merchant's daughter of Marseilles, who becomes involved with the Bonapartes, rises with them to the heights of power, survives Napoleon's downfall and ultimately becomes Queen Desideria of Sweden, the first Bernadotte Queen. Desiree herself tells her story in diary form, although it isn't as annoying as the diary form usually is, and the reader experiences events of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as Desiree did--as a series of domestic events. That these events occur in royal households and that Desiree is a major player in them could be accidental, but one quickly realizes that Desiree is a remarkable woman and these are no accidents.

The tone is intimate, and one feels as though Desiree is confiding in the reader as a friend. Annemarie Selinko is a virtuoso; even in translation not one word of this amazing story rings false. You will find yourself thinking of Desiree long after the end of the book. I read this first at sixteen, and found the historical information invaluable in a college history course (not the reason to read it, but it doesn't hurt).

I've since read the Josephine B. books, and a wonderful novel based on the life of Josephine Bonaparte called "The Emperor's Lady" by F. W. Kenyon (available used on Amazon), which I also heartily recommend, but "Desiree" is the platinum standard by which to judge historical novels/fictionalized biographies.

It is simply wonderful.

Not all of the book is fiction!.......2007-03-30

I love this book (as well as the movie to this book) and not all of the book is fiction! There was a woman named Desiree Clary she was the first love/fiance of Napoleon Bonaparte. She married one of his marshals, Jean-Baptise Bernadotte whom was elected to become King of Sweden in the early ninteenth century. Desiree's and Jean-Baptise's descandents are still on the throne of Sweden to this day.

I would also like to add that the author has done a brillent job in writing this book! She wrote the book so well, that it's diffucult to distinguish the line between fact and fiction in this book!

Imperial Splendor!!.......2006-10-18

Annemarie Selinko's "Desiree" is one of the best novels about France during the first Empire. It is definitely my favorite novel about Napoleon, told from the point of view of his cast-off fiancee, the enchanting Desiree Clary. Selinko's characterizations and descriptions are based on meticulous research, making this book one of the finest of the historical fiction genre. Feisty Desiree becomes a queen in spite of herself, and in spite of Napoleon, through a course of events that are almost unbelievable, but true. Many famous historical figures are brought to life, especially the fascinating, glamorous Josephine. The fortune-telling scene is one of my favorites in the book. Well-written, gripping, romantic and an unforgettable love story, "Desiree" is a book to own and read often. It is goes well with two other novels about the same era, almost as if they were a trilogy, Norah Loft's "A Rose for Virtue" and Elena Vidal's "Madame Royale."

Share this with your teenage daughter!.......2006-06-08

Desiree, the fictionalized true story of woman from a small French town who was supposedly Napoleon's first love and then later became a queen, is a great book to share with your teenage daughter.

My mother had me read this book when I was about 15 or 16 years old. The first few pages completely grabbed me and could hardly put the book down! Once I had finished, my mother and I looked at the encyclopedia together to see the actual photographs of Desiree, Jean-Baptiste, Julie, Napoleon, Joseph and Josephine. It was really great to *see* the people I had just read about. I have always remembered how *cool* it was for my mother and I to share this book and the real history behind it.

By the way, I own my mother's copy of the book (which is falling into pieces now), and a copy that I picked up at a library book sale. I have read this book at least every other year for the past 30 years. It is a wonderful read each and every time!

I hope you and your daughters enjoy this as much as my mother and I did!

I kept it from the library!.......2006-05-20

I LOVE this book. I spotted it at the library because like other reviewers, I find an irresistable intrigue surrounding the near-mythical Napoleon Bonaparte. So, naturally, I picked this up and could not put it down! It is so well written, and translated for that matter. (I believe it was originally in french?) It is so romantic and when it's done you'll be so enthralled with the characters and the time period you'll want to reread it. Granted, it isn't the most terribly intellectual novel or thought-provoking, but it is to books what a well-done chick flick is to movies. When I finished this I passed it on to my sister (who knows nothing about history, nor cares) and it is now her favorite book. I've read it several times- I could not return it to the library and had to pay the fine!

Please, please, please trust me; you will enjoy this book thoroughly!

The Trial of Charles I: A Documentary History

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The Trial of Charles I: A Documentary History

Manufacturer: Dartmouth
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0874514991

Book Description

Eyewitness accounts of the trial and execution of Charles I portray a revolutionary moment in English history.

A Coffin For King Charles: The Trial and Execution of Charles I

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A Coffin For King Charles: The Trial and Execution of Charles I
C. V. Wedgwood
Manufacturer: Time-Life Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000FMPGSE

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Drama & Tragedy Better Than Hollywood Could Ever Create

Charles I: The Personal Monarch
C. Carlton
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0415125650

Book Description

`This is by far the best modern biography of Charles I and will be welcomed both by general readers and by specialists...a strikingly individual contribution to our understanding of the personality of this King.' British Book News

Customer Reviews:

Drama & Tragedy Better Than Hollywood Could Ever Create.......2003-10-04

I bought this book after a trip to England, trying to figure out how Charles had so mismanaged his relationship with the House of Commons that he became the only British King to literally be killed by it. This book takes you on an amazing journey. Charles disguises himself and slips out of England, going to Madrid to check out a potential bride in Spanish Royalty. It doesn't work out, and soon after he marries Henrietta Maria of France. She speaks French, and is Catholic. He, of course, is the great defender of the Church of England. Yet they grow to love each other. But in these Puritan times, there are many who are anti-Catholic, and who think that Charles will make the island nation Catholic. The Scots want him to make it Presbyterian.

Book Description

"Remarkably and immensely readable...A just yet compassionate study of two complex, muddled, fissured human beings caught in the most difficult of crafts--kingship...It should not be missed by anyone interested in the Stuarts or in the personalities of Charles I and Charles II: indeed, any reader will be greatly stimulated by it."--J.H. Plumb, New York Review of Books. Two kings, father and son...and yet, their personalities could hardly have differed more. Through sources as varied as masks, statues, poems, medals, and contemporary written records, a picture of these Stuart monarchs, their characters and their politics, emerges.

Customer Reviews:

Not Surprisingly, This Book Is About Image and Personality!.......2000-08-24

While I agree with the previous reviewer that this book is not an historical chronicle of the reigns of Charles I and Charles II, it does not purport to be. What it does provide is superb insight into the personalities of these two fascinating monarchs, their public images and private personae. One can get excellent chronicles of the reign elsewhere. Here, one encounters vivid exposition and analysis of the thoughts, motives and manners of the kings, and how these were affected by the conscious cultivation of image. Ollard is, as always,elegant and eloquent.

Image is everything.......2000-05-25

Skip this book if you're looking for details into the reigns of these monarchs or specific instances of foreign policy, etc. This book mostly discusses the image of the kings, as the title suggests. There is little mention of Charles I's attempt to rule without his Parliment, but instead concentrates on his exquisit art collections, his vanity and his self-image. There is more written about Charles II and how his exile shaped his personality and made him so markedly different from his father. The book itself is small and is a fast read. It is a great character sketch on these two Kings.

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